The Philippines are established as an independent nation. Crowds of Filipinos gathered at Rizal Park (Luneta Park) in Manila on the July 4, 1946. View of Independence Grandstand (a temporary structure built in front of the Rizal Monument) with American flag and Philippine flags on tall flag poles.. View looking down on General Douglas MacArthur at a podium, speaking into microphones. Camera pans over various segments of the audience. A map shows the Philippine Islands in context of its neighbors in the Pacific Ocean. Camera pans closeup across faces of many Filipinos gathered at the independence event. View of the Jones Bridge over the Pasig River in downtown Manila. Heacock’s Department Store on the Escolta.The Legislative Building. (later the National Museum of the Philippines). Ocean going ships in a harbor. Cargo being offloaded from a ship onto smaller boat. An industrial complex with eight tall smoke stacks emitting smoke. Steel and petroleum plants. Filipino workers in an assembly plant. The Legislative building with people coming and going. Air raid sirens sounding and people running in streets of Manila at onset of Japanese invasion of the Philippines in December, 1941, at start of World War 2, in the Pacific.People running across the Jones Bridge, seeking shelter. Others boarding a bus. Smoke rising from Japanese bombing. Glimpse of Japaese tanks entering Manila. Japanese infantry climbing a hill. Bodies of persons killed during the Japanese invasion. Glimpse of Japanese troops occupying Corregidor. U.S. General Wainright negotiating the surrender of Corrigidor with Japanese General Homma. View of an American warship firing during the U.S. campaign to defeat the Japanese on islands in the Pacific. An American landing ship carrying U.S. troops who storm ashore. General Douglas MacArthur striding ashore with a retinue of officers, at Leyte, Philippines, on October 20, 1944. as he keeps his promise to return to the Philippines. Views, back again, to MacArthur speaking at the Independence Day ceremony in Manila on July 4, 1946. Also seen at the ceremony are: U.S.Senator Millard Tydings, (co-sponsor of the 1934 Tydings–McDuffie Act, which provided independence to the Philippines after a 10-year transition under a limited autonomy), and Paul V. McNutt, U.S. High Commissioner of the Philippines, who read President Truman's proclamation of Philippine Independence to the assembly. Camera pans over the gathering which includes many U.S. Service personnel in uniform. The oath of office is administered to the elected President of the Philippines, Manuel Roxas. At the conclusion, the American flag is lowered by Paul McNutt, as President Roxas raises that of the Republic of the Philippines. A celebratory parade in Manila includes a float with signs reading: "Let's Produce and Rebuild," among other things. Other floats represent "Mountain Province," and "The City of Manila," "The University of the Philippines," and "The Division of City Schools." One float, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, contains a huge replica machine gear, and models of an aircraft and a ship. It's message is about turning the gear that helps make the nation great. American and Filipino soldiers march, carrying their respective national flags. A white-helmeted military band plays for the marchers. Final scene shows large loose formation of military aircraft in flight very high above the Independence Grandstand, at Rizal Park.

Undersecretary of War, Robert Porter Patterson, Sr. speaks about a report from the General staff outlining the needs for combating Germany and Japan in World War 2. He cites Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, as an example of what will be needed. He continues to narrate in the background as an animated map appears showing the buildup of supplies and Allied forces in North Africa; Allied air forces flying 60 thousand sorties over Sicily and, the direct amphibious assault using 3,200 vessels. Map also depicts opposing forces of 12 (“unwilling”) Italian Divisions and 3-1/2 German Divisions. View of Allied troops carrying some of their 31 thousand casualties on stretchers from field ambulances. Allied medics attending to the wounded. Some are seen lying on stretchers in a row on the ground near a wall. Interior of a field hospital where surgeons and other medical personnel treat the wounded. Animated map shifts to Europe with Germany at its center, showing , in contrast to Sicily that was only an “outpost,”, the heavily fortified perimeter of Axis controlled areas; the axis industrial might; and the disposition of 300 German Divisions (mostly on the Eastern front) defending the region. Next, the map illustrates Japan’s defended regions in the Pacific Image returns to Undersecretary Patterson i n his office, speaking of the Allied offensives planned for next year (1944), and emphasizing their challenge and difficulty. Scene shifts to General Jonathan Wainwright and his garrison at Corregidor, in the Philippines, surrendering to Japanese forces in 1941. Japanese military camera pans over the Americans being taken prisoner. Other Americans and Filipinos are seen being marched together under guard. Scene shifts to classic views of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. View of Japanese soldiers executing two Chinese civilians in 1937. Dangling bodies of persons hung by Nazis during Operation Barbarossa in Russia, in 1941 A Russian soldier comforts a little girl as he escorts her across a snowy landscape. Time bomb left by German forces retreating from Naples, Italy, in 1943, blows up a Post office building . Views of damage to building and bodies of victims. American Military Police assisting a victim. American soldiers carrying an injured civilian on a litter. Scene shifts to British Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden, Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, and U.S. Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, entering a hall in the Spiridonovka Palace, during the 1943 Moscow Conference in Russia. Close-up of the American, Soviet, and British flags on a table. View of many delegates seated around the table. Close-up of Molotov, Eden, and Hull signing conference document.

Aerial views from airplane flying over an airfield near the ocean in the Philippines, prior to World War 2 in the Pacific. (The airfield is probably Iba Field, on Luzon, which was destroyed by Japanese bombers on Dec. 8, 1941.) Army airplanes are parked on the field. Numerous buildings and facilities are seen. A bivouac area of tents near the water. Scene shifts to Philippine Airlines pilot Paul Irving Gunn and his assistant, aviator Emil Sylvan Scott, standing in the grass, by a Philippine Airlines model 18 Beechcraft. The airplane is bright red with the number 2 painted on its nose and the company logo on its fuselage.

Allied campaigns against Japan during World War II. Animated map depicts battles for various islands in the Pacific like Guadalcanal, Palau, Mariana Islands. A map of the Philippines. United States troops invade the Philippines. Naval guns fire at a shore and flak bursts are seen. Dramatic shot of a Japanese Zero aircraft approaching U.S. Navy ships that are firing guns. The Japanese aircraft is hit at close range to the ship, a wing ruptures, it is consumed in fire and crashes with explosion in the sea beside the ship. Many landing craft with U.S. Army forces landing at beach on Leyte. Soldiers land and advance inland. United States Army General Douglas MacArthur and President Sergio Osmena of the Philippines wade ashore. Native women and children on the island are assisted by U.S. forces and provided with food and protection. Following are meetings of wartime Allied leaders, shown briefly in the ending of the film:
TC: 01: 39, Prime Minister Winston Churchill meeting President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the battleship, USS Augusta, at Newfoundland, during the Atlantic Conference, 1941. Roosevelt stands at the railing, assisted by his son, Army Captain Elliot Roosevelt. TC: 01:41. Roosevelt and Churchill meeting with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, at the Cairo conference, in 1943. TC: 01:44. Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill pose outside the Livadia Palace during the Yalta conference, 1945. Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, American Ambassador Harriman, British Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden, and Churchill's daughter, Sarah, in uniform, are among those standing behind the seated Big Three. TC: 01:46, Delegates from 51 Nations gathered for the first meeting of the UN General Assembly,in Westminster Central Hall,London, England, in 1946.

Film opens with goosestepping German and Japanese soldiers. Emperor Hirohito, on a white horse. American battleships burning in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. U.S. General Douglas MacArthur decorating a soldierin Manila, Philippines. Air raid sirens sounding in Manila and residents hurrying to take cover.Heavy black smoke rising from a bombed site and emergency vehicles and responders rushing to several bombed and burning locations. A burning rickshaw amidst other bombing rubble and bodies of victims. General MacArthur greeted by Australian officials at his headquarters in Brisbane, Australia. Sign reads: Headquarters UNITED STATES ARMY FORCES in Australia. American flag flying on tall flagpole. View from ship underway in supply convoy. A battleship seen on horizon and a destroyer passing the camera ship. U.S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt signing the "Lend Lease Act" of 1941. A U.S. industrial plant with four tall stacks emitting smoke. A steam locomotive belching steam. A locomotive pulling an open car and some tank cars. New 1941 Plymouth automobiles coming off a production line. A new M3 Medium Tank in a U.S. factory. View of Liberty Ships, including the "Zebulon Pike" and the "Henry Knox" under construction at the California Shipbuilding Corporation yard, Terminal Island, California. U.S. Navy Destroyers constructed at Federal Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, Kearny, New Jersey. One is being launched, next to DD-446 (the USS Radford). A formation of U.S. Navy aircraft including Curtiss SBC Helldiver scout bombers and Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bombers. A tight formation of U.S. Army Douglas B-18 Bolo medium bombers in flight. A formation of U.S. Army Curtiss P-36 Hawk aircraft in flight. Closeup of a U.S. Army Lockheed P-38 Lightning aircraft in flight. Several huge gun barrels for guns under construction at a U.S. war plant. Large artillery shells lined up in a manufacturing plant. U.S. Army M3 Medium tanks under construction at a factory. Steam and smoke rising from a U.S. industrial plant. Aerial view of open pit iron mine. Sparks shooting up inside a steel plant. A virtual "forest" of oil derricks in the Western U.S. Coal being transported by railway. View from stern of a warship in a convoy. An Atlanta-class light cruiser leading three destroyers at sea. Transport ships in convoys to places like Australia, Britain, and the Middle East. Troops on a pier near a large transport ship. A stack of wartime supplies on a pier next to a ship destined for Russia. Glimpse of wake from a U.S. warship having triple guns astern. Silhouette of a U.S. Navy Enterprise-class Aircraft carrier, with an aircraft taking off from her deck. The aircraft carrier, USS Saratoga. U.S. Army soldiers marching on parade, followed by numerous jeeps with machine guns mounted in their rears. Young men being drafted into the U.S. military. A draft lottery being conducted. New recruits doing calisthenics. Trucks pulling artillery pieces. B-18 Bolo bombers flying over U.S. tanks. Closeup of M3 tank. Cavalry fording a stream. Soldiers on motorcycles. Troops crossing a pontoon bridge. A loaded troop ship. A troop transport at Newfoundland. Sentry in Trinidad. Troops encamped in Bermuda.Troopship docked in Greenland. Troops disembarking in Iceland. Formations of Curtis P-36 Hawk aircraft. Douglas DC-2 aircraft factory. P-36s with engines running. M3 tank suspended on factory crane. Officials of Pan American nations siding with Allies. Allied troops including Dutch, Belgian, Yugoslav, Greek, Czech, Filipino, Polish, Norwegian, Free French, Australian, New Zealander, South African and Canadian. British warships. British Hawker Tempest aircraft. British comandoes.Russian troops on parade. Chinese troops on the Great Wall

An orientation film titled ' Westward is Bataan' about Japanese capture of the Philippines and the Americans surrender during World War II. Scenes of destruction from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, United States on December 7, 1941. U.S. ships being strafed and explosions occur. Excerpts from Japanese newsreel showing surrender of U.S. forces at Corregidor. United States soldiers in Corregidor, Philippines. U.S. Army General Jonathan Wainwright meets Japanese officers to surrender during the Battle of Corregidor. Japanese soldiers near Heam Battery on May 6, 1942. Japanese soldiers remove the American flag from a pole to raise the Japanese flag after the surrender. People celebrate Japanese victory in Tokyo, Japan. In Manila people gather along the streets as they wave the Japanese flags to welcome Japanese General Masaharu Homma. General Homma enters a building. Japanese soldiers parade as they carry the remains of the soldiers who lost their lives during the Battle of Corregidor. The boxes carrying the remains of the dead Japanese soldiers being handed over to Japanese women at a ceremony.